Dump "Access Islam" from Public Schools

The United States Department of Education has introduced an Islamic indoctrination program for the public schools, called "Access Islam."

The program contains 10 lesson plans that have students answering such questions as:

"What do Muslim prayers sound like?" "What do the movements look like?" and "What are some of the things Muslims say during prayer?"

Classroom instructions have children learning the Five Pillars of Islam where students must "focus on learning about the core duties of Muslims" and are asked to "read about what it means to proclaim faith or belief as a Muslim."

The Education Department offers no similar learning material for Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or any other major world religion. Just Islam.

This petition demands that the U.S. Department of Education dump its "Access Islam" program and acknowledge that it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The program, written for Grades 5 - 12, has students learning verses from the Quran and Hadith. Students must not only learn the verses, but give the religious "meaning" of those verses and explain how they use them in their daily lives.

The program also includes a video presentation on how to perform a Muslim prayer, use a prayer rug and wash prior to praying.

Students are also shown a video of a Muslim who converted from Christianity and claims Islam "is the true worship of God." The video instructs children to "submit yourself" to Allah.

"Access Islam" is promoted to teachers through PBS LearningMedia.

Students are assigned a project to "create posters about the Five Pillars of Islam for classroom display." Doing so, the instructional material says, will "help educate their schoolmates about Islam."

"Access Islam" is nothing short of a Sunday school class on Islam and fails to meet any constitutional criteria for permissible education of religion in the public schools.

In addition to the examples above, students are told to, "Describe the process of praying in Islam" and "Understand the importance of the Quran in daily worship."

Clearly, none of these lesson plans, activities, questions or instructions would be permitted in the public schools if the subject was Christianity.

Public schools would never have students reading the Bible, asking them to interpret scripture, demanding they use biblical scripture in their daily lives, have them examine what Christians say during prayer or instruct them to understand the Christian proclamation of faith.

"Access Islam" is unconstitutional and should be dumped immediately by the U.S. Department of Education.

Christian Action Network has issued a legal "Letter of Demand" asking the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, to remove the material from public school use and to declare the program a violation of the U.S. Constitution.